Reichswehr

The Reichswehr was the military of Germany's Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1935, when it was replaced by the Wehrmacht armed forces of Nazi Germany. On 6 March 1919, the Reichswehr was founded with 43 brigades (400,000 troops) in response to the rise of the Freikorps right-wing and Red Front Fighters League left-wing paramilitary groups during the German Revolution. The Reichswehr had 4,000 officers, and the Reichswehr put down the leftists alongside the Freikorps before putting down the failed Kapp Putch and the Nazi Party's Beer Hall Putsch. The army was limited to 100,000 troops, while the navy was limited to only 15,000 troops; there was no air force. Under Hans von Seeckt, the Reichswehr was regarded as a "state within a state", and even Adolf Hitler and the Nazis feared the Reichswehr, as the Reichswehr was fanatically loyal to President Paul von Hindenburg. In 1934, Hitler was forced to launch the "Night of the Long Knives" against his own SA paramilitary after its leader Ernst Rohm proposed replacing the Reichswehr with the SA, and the army remaind in power. However, Hitler's rise to power after Hindenburg's death led to the rise of Nazi Germany, and the Wehrmacht replaced the Reichswehr.